Music: Time Sick Son of a Grizzly Bear

One of the neatest byproducts of the music game craze has been the introduction of formerly obscure bands to the limelight. For instance, DragonForce's "Through the Fire and the Flames," the ending track from "Guitar Hero 3," shot up from 2,000 downloads a week to nearly 40,000 downloads. Clearly, being included in a music video game can be a huge break for a band.

So it is for "The Mother Hips," a San Francisco-based band that sounds like a cross between "The Beach Boys" (think psychefunkic tracks like "Good Vibrations") and more mainstream rock like "The Black Crowes." They were on hiatus for around six years (an eternity in the music world). Tracks from their latest album, "Kiss the Crystal Flake," made it to the "Rock Band" video game, though, and that's how I first heard of them.

Here's a portion of a live performance of "Time Sick Son of a Grizzly Bear," one of my favorite songs on the album. You can immediately see how the infectious main guitar riff can get stuck in your head: